A five-minute drive north of Lucca is the glass- walled dining room at the Michelin-starred Ristorante La Mora. With just 10 tables, the low-key restaurant is disturbed only occasionally by the faint roar of a passing train.

The owners used to have a popular shack by the sea and now they’ve gone big in the city, creating an outdoor summertime oasis favored by up-to-date locals—everywhere you look you’ll spot those famous Lucchese schnozzes buried tide-deep in fish.

The outdoor terrace is seductively shrouded in bougainvillea and the aromas of a superior kitchen. Tuck into a langoustine that might as well be butter, amazing red mullet, fatty raw oysters, and a sauce of balsamic, oil, pepper, salt, and, yes, fellow kebab-defenders, soy.

Firouz Galdo, an Iranian-born architect working in Rome, was brought in to create a contemporary space full of light, wood, and pewter—the whole thing could easily sit atop a Hong Kong skyscraper. Grano Salis, full of young locals, is certainly in the pro-kebab camp.